Most of us use fungi every day without even knowing it. We eat mushrooms and Quorn, but we also prepare many other foods using fungi: The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae puts the bubbles in wine and beer and makes bread rise and the koji process uses the fungi Aspergillus sojae and Aspergillus oryzae to produce the oriental foods, soy sauce and miso. We also use fungi to produce flavourings, vitamins and enzymes.

We get some important drugs from fungi such as the antibiotic penicillin and cyclosporin Ð a drug that stops organ rejection after transplantation. Research scientists use several fungi to investigate basic functions that occur in all cells because they are simple and easy to grow; some cancer research is done using fungi.

Fungi are responsible for breaking down dead organic matter which allows nutrients to be cycled through the ecosystem. Many plants cannot grow without the fungi that inhabit their roots and supply them with essential nutrients.

Without fungi we would not have bread, beer, wine or antibiotics, but more importantly without the nutrient recycling and plant nutrition provided by fungi - we probably could not survive at all.